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COMING STEPS IN ITS EVOLUTION 

(Reprinted from the "Illinois Mag-azine," October 1, 1903.) 

VERY, very few universities have enjoyed such a strong 
and rapid development as the University of Illinois. New, 
large, and substantial buildings have appeared each year. 
The faculties and students have increased in numbers so rapidly 
that we each feel our acquaintance is very limited. We have affil- 
iated outside professional schools until it seems to be the natural 
order. We have started new lines of work, and expanded the 
equipment until we have created an organization and secured the 
facilities for prosecuting almost every phase of research and of 
advanced instruction. 

Very naturally some wonder whether we are not coming to a 
limit in development ; others find amusement in castles in the air 
which are wholly fanciful. 

There is no limit, save in resources, to the evolution of a uni- 
versity, but a university cannot carry on its work in castles which 
do not rest upon the ground. We stand for the higher educational 
work of a great, rich, strong State, capable of aiding us in any 
measure it thinks good. We are commissioned to help on the in- 
tellectual advance, not of a class, but of the mass, and we are par- 
ticularly enjoined to preach the gospel of work, and to help on the 
great industries upon which the wealth and strength of the State 
rest. We have prospered because we have followed the terms of 
our commission, and because we have not quarreled among our- 
selves, but have had a good fellowship and a correct and cour- 
ageous spirit while pursuing the State's highest work. We 
shall continue to prosper and shall grow beyond the confident 

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expectations of all who know the difficulties of putting up build- 
ings on the ground and of binding all of our activities together into 
a symmetrical and comprehensive whole, if we just continue to do 
in the larger field as we have been doing in the smaller one. 

It is hazardous to attempt to name the specific steps which 
are likely to be taken in the future unfolding of an institution. The 
writer is no better able to do that than any one else who has sub- 
stantially his opportunities for knowledge of University affairs. 
He does not determine what shall be done next, and he is no bet- 
ter at foreseeing than others may be. The directions in which 
a university shall unfold are determined by the common sentiment 
and the composite action of a vast number of people, or the thing 
which is unfolded will not be much of a university. But the writer 
has some unusual opportunities for discerning the concentration 
of sentiment, and is not afraid of any dire consequences of mis- 
judging so uncertain a factor in the almost wholly unknown. So 
premising that as to any matters not yet fully decided he shall not 
be expected to sustain any intimations here given unless, when 
discussions are closed, it shall seem best to do so, he ventures to 
foretell some coming events. 

Four important movements bearing upon the future of the 
University plant are determined upon and will be executed very 
soon. First, provision has been made for a liberal extension of 
the equipment of the College of Engineering : the results of this 
will not be very manifest before next year, for ample time will be 
taken to guard against mistakes so far as possible ; but before long 
the results will be very noticeable. Second, provision has been 
made for a fine extension of the equipment of the College of Ag- 
riculture : and in the next two or three years a series of attractive 
buildings extending east and west along the south side of the 
south campus will be erected, and they promise to be an impor- 
tant addition to the University group. Third, a Woman's Build, 
ing will be erected next year, facing the south campus and Wright 
street, which is bound to add a beautiful structure to the University 
settlement, and some new features to University life. Fourth, the 
south campus is to be enlarged and made impressive. The road 
running east and west in front of the barns has been extended to the 
limits of our grounds opening into Fourth street in Champaign and 
itno Lincoln avenue in Urbana. The south gate and the road lead- 
ing to it have been closed in order to prepare the way for carrying 
out the new plans about agricultural buildings. The road in front 
of the Observatory has been.closed and put into lawn. New roads 



IN EXCHANGE. 

111. Univ. 



in extension of Wright street on the west and Mathews avenue on 
the east have been or are being opened. All lands in the quad- 
rangle bounded by these several roads and University Hall, and 
all the lands extending out to the Forestry, are to be cleared of 
the small buildings, and of fruit trees, and of growing crops, and put 
into lawn except eight small plats east of the Observatory which 
the Experiment Station people think imperative to their work for 
some time yet. In other words, a great expanse of the most beau- 
tiful landscape in Illinois is to be put into the campus, improved 
from time to time, dedicated to the human interests, and given 
over to the outdoor life of the University. We are exceedingly 
fortunate in our land holdings, and are going to make the most of 
the fact. It is doubtful if any other American university has such 
a beautiful campus, or such an outlook for a still more beautiful 
and impressive one. 

Now as to the possible or probable steps which have not yet 
been decided upon. A serious and pressing need is an Assembly 
Hall capable of seating three thousand people. In plan it seems 
to me that it should be something between an opera house and a 
church, with something of the comfort of the former, and some- 
thing of the dignity and stateliness of the latter. It should have 
a capacious platform: it might well house the School of Music; 
and it should have the finest pipe organ in the region. 

The Library Building will at an early day be required for the 
exclusive use of the Library and Library School. The time is not 
remote when the stacks will not only need to be enlarged by tak- 
ing in the room overhead occupied by the school, which has al- 
ways been the intention, but when the wing of the building con- 
taining the stacks will have to be extended to the south for the 
accommodation of the larger libraries which we are going to have. 
Moreover, the administrative offices need better accommodations. 
These things will lead to an Administration Building. 

The department of physics is in the Engineering Building 
only as a matter of convenience, and because that is the best 
place we have had for it. It does not belong there, it requires 
special accommodations, and the engineering work needs the space . 
This means a new Physics Laboratory and natural accessories. 

The College of Science needs a substantial addition to its 
present building, or a separate structure for housing its collec- 
tions, and perhaps propagating materials for its work. It is a 
need which is likely in time to be realized. 

It is a somewhat common thought that University Hall, or, as 

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the writer likes to call it, " the Old Building," has about outlived 
its usefulness and ought to disappear. It ought never to disap- 
pear. It probably will not, unless by fire, and it is to be de- 
voutly hoped that such a calamity will not fall upon us. It is a 
spacious and a very useful building. It has associations which 
are of exceeding interest to many generations of students, and 
which will multiply and deepen indefinitely. Moreover it stands 
for the beginnings of the University, its early architecture and 
life. The front at least should be retained for all time substan- 
tially as now. I have often thought that a south side might well 
be erected for the building so as to complete the square. It 
might not be impracticable to place the needed Assembly Hall in 
such a new side. The open court in the center might be paved 
with asphalt or cement, with a fountain at the center, and a 
" fence " where students could roost and swap stories between 
times. If in addition to all this we should cut down the front 
entrance to the ground and build an arcade through the present 
structure and extend it through the proposed south side so as to 
make walks and command views clear through, and so connect 
Burrill avenue north and south, we would add a unique and pleas- 
ing feature to our University city without destroying anything we 
ought to retain. We might even go further and close Burrill 
avenue as a carriage way, and convert it into a broad walk clear 
through our splendid campus, and so secure our grounds more 
completely to University uses, and promote that scholastic atmos- 
phere which the work of higher education requires for virile 
growth. All this may or may not be among the coming events. 

Certainly there is to be a new outfit of grand stand and 
bleachers on Illinois Field one of these days. Some " Old Grad, " 
or some good friend specially interested in athletics, ought to 
build them for us, or the Athletic Association ought to start a 
crusade for the money to do it with. If in connection there could 
be secured a big "batting cage " for baseball so much the better, 
because so much the better for the batter. 

Almost as certainly there is to be a chime of bells in the tower 
of the Library Building. We are waiting a rather long time, but 
some good friend who loves music and can realize the influence 
of such an acquisition upon our life will yet give the bells to us. 

It is unnecessary to think about other structures at this time. 
Time may help the thinking and make it clearer. But it may be 
worth while to predict that in all new structures there will be 
purer and more typical architecture. There is but one building, — 

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possibly two,— which stands for a type in architecture. This has 
been no one's fault. We are under obligations to our own de- 
partment of architecture that we have got on as well as we have. 
But we have not been free in the matter. We have got our 
buildings out of hard conditions. Often the main question has 
been not what the architecture of a new building should be, 
but rather whether we should have the new building at all or not. 
Sometimes we have accepted mongrel or meaningless architecture 
to avoid something positively frightful. We are now in little dan- 
ger from the old sources, however. There is a certain safety in 
largeness, when no one man, or no small combination with 
some selfish end in mind and pretending to know so much that 
isn't so, can exert control or inflict hurt. In a great University 
policies have to be settled by discussion in the University forum. 
Discussion helps the right. The time has come to contend, to 
fight if need be, for purer, more dignified and attractive Universi- 
ty architecture, and accordingly it may be confidently expected. 

What may be anticipated in the way of attendance? That is 
the last thing for us to worry about now. The registration this 
year is likely to exceed four thousand,— something like 2,500 at 
the seat of the University, and 1,600 in the professional depart- 
ments in Chicago. We are not ambitious for a further increase 
in numbers: we do not care to absorb other professional schools. 
We have all that can be desired in the way of attendance. All 
we care for now is the largest possible usefulness. We want to 
bring the level of this great body of students up to the highest 
possible plane of intellectual virility, of professional efficiency, of 
good stalwart, fearless, balanced citizenship. We want to break 
out some new roads in learning. We want to apply the latest and 
truest knowledge to the industrial and commercial and political 
life of the State. The students through whom to do this are upon 
us. We have not to look for more, but to do the most we can for 
the ones who are here. But more will come. There is little rea- 
son to doubt the attendance of say four thousand students here at 
the seat of the University within another ten years. 

The only reasons for any doubt lie in the possibility that the 
responsible authorities may not stand up to their work as they 
should in requiring that students shall be prepared for college 
work in the local high schools to the fullest capacity of those 
schools, and in aiding those schools to attain the highest efficiency; 
in requiring that idlers shall not be in the way of the serious ; and 
in providing instruction of the highest order for the studious. And 

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possibly in the other fact that increasing numbers may not be able 
to secure suitable rooms and nourishing food at reasonable cost. 

The difficulty about homes is a serious one. Too often rooms 
are not what they should be, and food is not as nourishing as it 
might be. And the effort to make the charge excessive is constant- 
The University has always tried to avoid the responsibility of start- 
ing a system of dormitories, but may eventually have to come to it. 
It has been hoped, and is still hoped, that the surplus capital, of 
which there is plenty, in the adjacent cities would build suitable 
apartment houses, near the campus, to meet the needs of the fac- 
ulty and students; that common sentiment would gradually im- 
prove the living, and that rates would have some consideration 
for the worthy who are struggling against odds to secure a liberal 
education. 

This is, in the main, the uncertain factor in reckoning upon 
future attendance of students at this University. As it may be 
eliminated, it doubtless will be. If so, there is little reason to doubt 
that inside of another ten years the attendance at the University 
proper will reach four or five thousand, and that, with the profes- 
sional schools, which are as legitimately and completely a part of 
the University as any other part, we shall be, so far as numbers 
are concerned, among the first three or four of American universi- 
ties. Established, unlike any other, with the departments which 
thrive best away from a large city located in a rural environment* 
and with our great medical departments at the heart of one of the 
greatest cities, indeed at the very largest center of medical edu- 
cation in the world, we might easily come to be, in point of num- 
bers, the largest University in America. 

But we readily see that the largest is not necessarily the strong- 
est or the greatest. Of infinitely more importance than anything 
else is the quality of the instruction, and the spirit of the students. 
The level of scholarship must be high, and tne quest for new 
truth general and serious, the ideals must be noble, the organiza- 
tion must be comprehensive, the work must apply to the circum- 
stances of a constituency, before a university can be strong or great. 
In these regards we are likely to see early and very decided ad- 
vances. 

Because we say that we are to advance to the best university 
ideals it would be thoroughly unjust to infer that the work of the 
University has been of a low grade. On the contrary, its work has 
been high, and earnest, and its graduates are standing up well, ex- 
erting their full meed of influence, and winning their full share of 

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success on all fields of world experience. Our entrance require- 
ments have averaged as high as those of any university west of the 
Alleghenies ; we have just made one decided advance in require- 
ments, and ordered another in the fall of 1905. But in these years of 
rapid growth, and under our system of accredited schools, some stu- 
dents have come to us wtihout adequate preparation, or any suffi- 
cient understanding of what they were coming into. In the College 
of Agriculture the students have come from the rural districts hav- 
ing no high schools, and it has been necessary to admit a large num- 
ber of "specials" there, or to withhold the work from the only can- 
didates who want it, and the very ones whom we want to have it 

But we are not afraid of the accredited school relationship. 
Ninety per cent of the students who come to us under it are very 
well prepared. The others fail and withdraw : they may get some 
good : they do us no great harm. Many of the ninety per cent 
would not go to college at all but for our accredited relationship 
with their high schools. It will not be necessary to open the doors 
of the College of Agriculture any wider than we have done. Any 
way, and generally, it is quite as well for a university to give stu- 
dents their chance. If we "weed them out" in the freshman year, 
and see that the weak and frivolous do not hinder the capable and 
serious ones, and if we make sure that all who get our degrees and 
honors deserve before they get them we shall not permit much 
harm, and we shall do more good than if we follow a narrow, or a 
snippy course. But the time is at hand to "weed out" more un- 
hesitatingly and decisively. As the time tor it is at hand the 
change will soon come. 

Again, our many new students have required many new pro- 
fessors and instructors. Under the necessities of the case many 
of them have been young in years and experience. But they have 
in general been selected with care. Some have failed, but many 
are making it finely. Moreover we have been hard pressed for 
means: our very growth has made us poor: and other institutions 
with more money have enticed some good ones from us. Now 
we are in the " trying out " period. Our teachers have, as a rule, 
had the best training in the foremost schools of the world. As a 
rule they are growing, showing splendid capacity and spirit. It 
must be so, or they must give way to others who will, for the life 
blood of the University is in its teaching. We are in a position 
now to be even more exacting when we call new members to our 
faculties. We are gathering the equipment in the libraries ($20,- 
000 each year for libraries now) and laboratories, which stimulates 

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 927 167 5 

teachers and attracts the best men from other institutions. And 
happily we are in a position to prevent another university from 
taking a desirable teacher from us by an offer of more money, 
unless under all the circumstances we think it as well that he 
should go. 

So, among the early steps which we may count upon, will be 
a decisive advance to higher ground. As we go up the hill the 
scholarship of the University will strengthen with the effort, and 
our prominence will attract scholars and students from all parts 
of the world. 

But we cannot take these steps up this hiil with mere amia- 
ability and a passive acceptance of what others do. The heavy 
stick, as well as the soft voice, will be in requisition. The city in 
which the writer used to live was built upon hills. He knows some- 
thing about hills. If there was a particularly heavy task to be per- 
formed it was common to say that " it would be like rolling hogs- 
heads of molasses up State street in the winter time." We have 
some very heavy loads to carry up the hill, — heavier than many 
are accustomed to see, but we can carry them to the very top, if 
we have nothing but the adancement of learning and the good of 
the people of Illinois in our minds, if we keep our feet upon the 
earth, and our heads cool, and if we all lift together. 

A. S. Draper. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ^£ 

029 927 167 5 



